I recently listened to a message by my dear friend Nathan Johnson on the Daily Thunder Podcast. In this message, regarding one of the names of God: “Jehovah Nissi”, he brought up the story of the people of Israel and the fiery serpents in Numbers 21. It inspired a thought in me that I wanted to expand on.
Context
As always we must begin with some context. The people of Israel have been wandering the wilderness for quite a while now and they keep coming to God with “murmurings”. In this instance they murmur to God as follows: “And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.’” God, in return, sends out fiery serpents which bit the people and killed many (Num 21:6). The people instantly regret their murmuring, come to Moses and repent of their evil, Moses intercedes to God on behalf of the people and God comes up with an odd solution:
“Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard; and it will be that everyone who is bitten and looks at it, will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it happened, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
Numbers 21:8-9
Thought
Now we know that Jesus tells Nicodemus in John chapter 3 that the bronze serpent was simply a symbol of Himself. And we nod our heads and say: “Yes, what a great picture of Jesus.” and move on with our lives. But I would love you to stop for more than a second and actually think about what this means for your life.
You see, we all have “fiery serpents” in our lives. Biting us and making us suffer each and every day. For some it may come in the form of lust, anger, pride, jealousy, etc. It may be someone else making your life a drag. You are probably tired of running from this serpent day after day only to get bit more often than you would like. You read of deliverance in scripture and try that once and a while but it seems to keep biting you over and over again. I am sure this is a great majority of Christian experience today.
A Simple Look
The passage here gives us a much simpler answer than you would like to believe. God tells Moses: “Everyone who is bitten and looks at it [the bronze serpent aka. JESUS], will live.” No further instruction, no ointment, no 7 week rehab, no 30 day devotional, no 5 day cleanse, no other tasks. A simple look and the guaranteed promise: “WILL LIVE.”.
What you need to understand is the simplicity of our Christian faith. Our life comes from a simple look to Jesus. But we refuse to believe it could be that simple. So we run to friends, to church, to our own reading, to logic, and sadly to the wisdom of the world for some type of deliverance from our pain. But what was God’s instruction? Look to the bronze serpent. You think those who were bitten by the fiery serpents hesitated? You think they looked at each other first? Maybe they tried to run to their tents for ointment or healing? No, no, no. They simply had to look.
Look to Jesus
I so wish you would understand how simple it is. Just look to Him. Stop wasting your time with other avenues of healing which all end up failing and look to Him. Don’t look to your friend, don’t look to yourself, and God forbid you look to the world, but simply look to Him. It’s a 100% guaranteed promise of God that you “will live” if you would only look.
In Jesus is the “fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col 2:9). In Jesus is “everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). Jesus is the “head of all principality and power (Col 2:10). What more do you need? What more? Look to Him.
Respond
- Praise God for His beloved Son Jesus and His preeminence among all.
- Confess to God your looking to anywhere or anyone else but Christ.
- Ask God to fix your gaze on Christ and Christ alone.